SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - The Financial Sector Is a Subsidized Money Machine

Just 10% of Americans own 91 percent of the nation's stocks and mutual funds, according to economist Edward Wolff. Most of the remainder is held by a "middle class" that is steadily losing ground. The bottom 60% is almost entirely shut out.

Stock owners, some of whom made billions of dollars last year, can defer their income taxes indefinitely, pay a reduced capital gains tax when they decide to cash in, or pass on the capital gains tax-free to their heirs.

Making money is all a game to the super-rich -- redistribution toward the top, trickle-down delusions, tax avoidance, and even, for some of them, dabbling in criminal activities.

Paul Buchheit, Super Bowl For the Rich

Chipotle beat on earnings but missed on revenues and a few growth measures. That's a refrain you will hear quite often in these days of dodgy GAAP rules and accounting antics. The priced-for-perfection stock was down 5 percent after hours.  Who knows if it will stick.  It's all a game.

Factor orders missed by a mile this morning.

Oil has rallied back over 50. It is not clear what this means exactly since the price discovery process is badly broken by leveraged speculation.  Hey, weren't we just here about six years ago?

I suspect there was a steep overshoot to the downside that can be attributed to 'gamesmanship.'

 

S&P 'settled' for 1.4 Billion for its active participation in the massive mortgage fraud perpetrated by Wall Street.  It was just a cost of doing business. 

There will be another financial crisis, and another attempt to bail out the perpetrators by their shrine maidens in the Congress. 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

NAV Premiums of Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Why There Is No Recovery

 

Another 7,285 ounces of gold bullion were redeemed from the Sprott Physical Gold Trust.

My friend Arby had an interesting observation.  I have not checked it out specifically.  I thought Australia was in second place, but I have not looked at the latest figures for 2014.

 

But if the numbers are generally right, which they seem to be, it gives us some idea of the magnitude of what is going on.

US 52 WEEKS gold mine production 2014 (estimate from Mineweb) ... ...    210 tonnes

China first 3 WEEKS gold imports 2015 (calculated by Koos Jansen)      .... 202 tonnes

The largest producer of gold is China, second Russia, third USA.

The two largest producers are net importers of their world leading mining output.  The third largest producer is a net exporter.

 

And then there's Australia, but I'm not sure that they even know what they're doing as one of the attendant nations.

 

No matter what the exact numbers and who makes the most, gold is flowing from West to East. 

Anyone who does not understand this is missing one of the most dramatic monetary phenomena of this century.

I wonder who will blink first in this 'suicide squeeze.'  Because that is what this latest gold pool is becoming.

Speaking of monetary phenomenon, the professor of numbers and all things housing Tony Sanders notes that Mortgage Bonds Have Underperformed the Worst Since 2008 on Refi Risks.

 

As part of a different discussion, I noticed the other week that the Fed stepped up purchases of agency mortgage debts considerably since they 'ended QE' and own a boatload of them.

 

Janet and Bill Dudley must be running handcarts up and down Wall and Broad Streets telling the Banks to, 'bring out your dead.'

 

Fan and Fred buy them, and the Fed buries them.   With nothing going to the people whose homes are being foreclosed.   

And finally,  Zerohedge reminds us this morning that the numbers indicate that the biggest flows of capital into the US equity markets are from.. wait for it... companies using their profits to buy back their own stocks, by far.

 

So the Fed is using its ability to print money to buy bad debts from the Banks which they created to cheat their customers, and companies are using the outsized profits they are obtaining through government subsidies and underpaying their workers to buy back their own stock and enrich their upper management. 

 

And as Wall Street On Parade reminds us this morning, the corporatized media, owned by a handful of corporations, is cheerleading all this, and is very much captured by the crony capitalist culture.

 

And people wonder why there is no recovery.  Who says they want one, when this new normal is paying off for a privileged few so well.  And they get to buy even more of the remaining productive assets on the cheap.

 

That's trickle down stimulus, par excellence.

 

Related:  The Big Lie:  5.6% Unemployment

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - NonFarm Payrolls Friday

Gold was hit early on during quiet trade, and then regained most of its losses intraday.

A late hit in quiet after hours trade took it back down a bit.

Silver held up quite well.

 

There was not all that much of interest going on with the Comex other than blatant price shoving.  They must be trying to work down the February open interest. 

 

The Comex is becoming increasingly irrelevant to precious metals.

 

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls Report on Friday.

When the going gets tough, the privileged lie, then cheat, then deny everything, and then finally panic and accuse everyone else of undermining them out of jealousy for their well deserved success and impeccable qualities.

 

I doubt they will learn from their folly on their own.  Most sociopaths and narcissists have a huge blind spot when it comes to realistic self-assessment.  And they flock to finance, politics, and positions of power, especially in a kleptocracy.  Which is what we have here in the States today.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

Even Children Who Are Homeless Have Dreams